page_title: Narathihapate
section_title: Rise to power
hierarchical_section_title: Narathihapate / Reign / Rise to power
caption_attribution_description: English: Mingalazedi temple, Bagan, Myanmar. Deutsch: Mingalazedi-Tempel, Bagan, Myanmar.
context_page_description: Narathihapate was the last king of the Pagan Empire who reigned from 1256 to 1287. The king is known in Burmese history as the "Taruk-Pyay Min" for his flight from Pagan to Lower Burma in 1285 during the first Mongol invasion of the kingdom. He eventually submitted to Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty in January 1287 in exchange for a Mongol withdrawal from northern Burma. But when the king was assassinated six months later by his son Thihathu, the Viceroy of Prome, the 250-year-old Pagan Empire broke apart into multiple petty states. The political fragmentation of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery would last for another 250 years until the mid-16th century.
  The king is unkindly remembered in the royal chronicles, which in addition to calling a cowardly king who fled from the invaders, also call him "an ogre" and "glutton" who was "great in wrath, haughtiness and envy, exceeding covetous and ambitious." According to scholarship, he was certainly an ineffective ruler but unfairly scapegoated by the chronicles for the fall of the empire, whose decline predated his reign, and in fact had been "more prolonged and agonized".
context_section_description: But fate came calling. In early May 1256, Uzana died from a hunting accident, and Thihathu claimed the throne. The court led by the powerful chief minister Yazathingyan did not accept a head-strong Thihathu, and placed their preferred candidate, Khwe Chi, whom they believed they could control, on the throne on 6 May 1256. Thihathu was arrested and executed. Narathihapate held the coronation ceremony in November 1256. He assumed the regnal name "Śrī Tribhuvanādityapavara Dhammarāja" (ၐြီတြိဘုဝနာဒိတျပဝရဓမ္မရာဇ).
caption: The Mingalazedi Pagoda built by Narathihapate
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